A White Summer by Mitsuru Adachi

Synopsis: Ichimura Tetsu and Kakiuchi Gorou have been friends forever, a friendship that was solidified by baseball. Tetsu-kun was the pitcher while Gorou-kun was the catcher of the Nazawa High School team. As life made its turns Tetsu and Gorou took different paths, Gorou as a police officer and Tetsu went to Tokyo to continue his studies. A few years later Gorou is chased by the mob, but every time the mob attacked Gorou the attacker was found dead the next morning. Gorou is suddenly in the middle of a war, his superiors think he is responsible and so do the mob, but he isn’t, so who is behind this murders?

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This very short story by Mitsuru Adachi is a mystery by it self. Offering a great deal of information at a time, the reader is left wondering what is important to know and what isn’t. The weird pacing adds a plus to the confusion factor which is not good at all when you are already confused.

Now, A White Summer isn’t entirely bad at least once you get used to the pacing and confusion, you can start seeing the characters. But even when you can see the characters there is nothing to be felt since it is all so confusing, the characters start being an extra to the story and it is here where the absolute problem can be found, the story. It’s such a simple story twisted back and forth and back again that you are lost. I don’t know how can someone twist such a simple story to the point of confusion.

To save the day we have the art. Excellent. With almost perfect character designs and backgrounds there was no page I couldn’t find a thrill to watch. Even when the story was confusing, the sweet ending was the perfect complement to the manga.

I have yet to read more mangas by Adachi and I probably will. Yet this one is something not spectacular nor is it good or average, it is just mediocre. The only ones that I can recommend this manga to are the people that want to have all the manga that exist in the world or those that are fans of Adachi.